Inevitable
by Kellifer
Summary: Sam and Jack have 'the' conversation


Disclaimer - I do not own any of the characters or situations portrayed on Stargate SG1 - I just like using them for stories.

-Inevitable-

"I love your wrinkles."

"What kind of an answer is that?"

"An honest one. You asked."

"I was expecting you to say something nicer than that you love me because I'm an old guy."

"You're hardly old sir."

"But you love my wrinkles?"

"Yep."

"Anything else?"

"Of course but that was the first thing that popped into my head. I'm not playing this game if you're going to get grouchy."

"I'm not grouchy, just weirded out."

"What did you expect me to say?"

"I don't know, something like... because I'm this Hercules of a man or because I'm so sweet. Something along those lines."

"How about you tell me what you wanted to hear and we can pretend that's what I said."

"Don't be silly."

"Me?"

"Okay. Will you tell me why that's the first thing you thought of?"

Samantha Carter sat forward in the diner chair she was occupying, the old upholstery creaking with her movement and gazed at the man on the other side of the booth from her, her CO, Jack O'Neill. SG1 had recently returned from a 14-day stint off world and Sam and Jack had headed for a diner close to their Colorado Springs base as soon as they had been given the all clear by their medic team. Jack had been dying for a steak and Sam just wanted a really good coffee. They were supposed to have been off world for another 24 hours but Daniel Jackson had come down with an awful fever and they had to return. Teal'c had stayed with the archeologist and Sam and Jack had ducked out. They would return to the base to join the vigil, but had both been going a little stir crazy and General Hammond had ordered them off the base, just for a little while. Although Hammond had tried to order Teal'c away also, they had all pleaded for Hammond to let at least one of them stay, in case Daniel woke up.

She dropped her chin into her hand and raised an eyebrow at Jack. She gave him a good long study just so he would know she was taking his question seriously.

He wasn't overly tall, just a touch over six feet. He had short sandy brown hair shot with grey. The grey hadn't been there when they had met. The hair at the moment stood up in snags and snarls because he had been rubbing his hands through it. His brown eyes verged on black and he hadn't shaved in a couple of days. He had a compact leanness that had come from too many days off world and not enough eating proper meals and sleeping in soft beds. The sum of the whole made up a fairly attractive package. Despite this, he wasn't at first glance overly special. He would maybe rate a second look from most women but nothing drastic.

Then he would smile.

His whole face would lift, his eyes would crinkle and the only time he had truly deep wrinkles was when he smiled that way. They were the epitome of laugh lines. Character and an irresistible charm would flood his face, making it far from ordinary. He didn't smile that often, which probably made it all the more special. He had a smile that she suspected was reserved for her alone that made her feel warm to her toes.

Yes, she loved him for his wrinkles. She thought of explaining all this to him and sighed. He wouldn't get it. He would give her the smile that meant she delighted and exasperated him all at the same time, without really understanding a word she was saying. She knew it well.

"Can I just change my answer? I love you because of your Herculean manliness and your sensitive side to boot." She treated him to an evil grin.

"Fine. Don't tell me then." He scowled and the wrinkles were nowhere to be seen. He looked in the mirror next to his chair and pondered his face critically. He glanced at her sideways. "I don't see any." He said.

She grinned. "Turn that frown upside down." She knew she was being goofy but it got the right result.

He did, still looking in the mirror. "Gawd. Where the hell did all those come from?" He sighed and sat back in his own cracked red vinyl chair. He was smirking now though and she couldn't help but grin back at him. Sam glanced at her own reflection. She furrowed her brows; creating the creases she had finally resigned herself to having. They both had had hard lives, and it was written for all to see on their faces.

"I like that face you're frowning at right now." Jack said and leaned forward, taking her face between his palms and turning it away from the mirror. He brought his palms together so her face was squished between them. "There, now we're twins. Lots of wrinkles." He chuckled. Sam slapped his hands away and sat back, her arms crossing her chest.

"Har, har. There's a reason I didn't mention your sense of humor you know." Sam knew they were wandering into dangerous territory and although they had both previously admitted their feelings for one another, it was something they shouldn't be repeating. "You do know we shouldn't be having this conversation right?" Sam sat forward again with worry creasing her brow. There's a line, she thought, glancing at herself again. That line between her brows she knew was probably now the most prominent one on her face. She spent so much of her time really working it in. Worrying about the world, worrying about Jack, worrying about the fact that although they were only separated by a grimy diner table at that point in time, both she and Jack might as well have been on different worlds for all the chance they had of actually being together.

"I'm waiting for the day when I wake up and you're not there anymore. Telling me I'm wrinkly doesn't reassure me, by the way." He said. It had always amazed Sam that Jack O'Neill kept his most matter-of-fact tone for when he was dropping bombshells. He always sounded half-bored when declaring important things. "What?" She blurted.

He looked down at the table and traced a coffee cup stain with his finger. "This morning I woke up and you weren't there." Sam opened her mouth but Jack raised a hand, a silent plea to let him get what he had to say off his chest before she interrupted. Get out what had been plaguing him. She knew he had been quiet since that morning but Sam had assumed it was worry about Daniel. "You'd just gone to sleep next to Daniel because he was burning up, I know that, but it made me realize something. For almost half an hour I lay there thinking." Jack's eyes ticked to hers and then away. "There will come a time when our jobs don't keep us together anymore. SG1 is a kick and I'm not about to retire, but we can't do this for the rest of our lives. One day you'll have gotten tired of my old, wrinkly face and will move on to greener pastures." He explained, not looking at her, making a helpless gesture with his hand.

Sam picked at the worn chair she was sitting on and a piece of vinyl flaked off in her fingers. She started tearing it into smaller pieces, watching Jack not look at her. She loved her life, with all its worry and danger. Mostly she loved that despite them not being able to be actually together, she got to see Jack O'Neill almost every day. She could sleep next to him, share meals with him and have him grasp her to his chest when she was grieving, as he had when they had lost Janet.

"All I could see was an empty space where you should've been. I'm just trying to tell you that I've been waiting for that morning when you're actually gone, maybe for a couple of months now. When there'll just be an empty space where you should be." He said in that maddeningly normal tone. Sam clenched her fists and a large chunk of the chair along with some musty smelling stuffing came away in one of them. She forced her hands to unclench.

"Are you waiting for that to happen... or are you wanting that to happen?" She asked in a small voice. He looked up at her quickly and his eyes grew shiny. The expression he wore was unreadable.

"Dreading it with every fiber of my being is closer to the mark." He said simply. "The day you're no longer in my life is the day I cease to exist, you know?" He looked back down at the table, at the hundreds of coffee stains overlaid by the thousands of cigarette burns. His finger began to trace the most prominent coffee ring again. I like his hands too, Sam thought. If I told him that, would he stop waiting for me to leave? His hands were broad and strong and the fingers square. There was dirt under the short nails. She captured the one not occupied with tracing the coffee ring stain and laced his fingers with her own.

"You would have to cease to exist for me to be without you. Plain and simple."

"Let's face facts though."

"I don't want to."

"But we-"

"No."

They looked at each other across the table for a long time, holding hands and searching each other's eyes. The waitress' arrival broke their deadlock.

"Newly weds eh?" She asked, all but dropping a coffee pot onto their table. A few drops flew from the spout, adding to the generations of stains already there.

"Far from it." Sam sighed.


End file.
